Columbus Day = Bad Vis

[Soggy]

gmbaker, pkatzman, mer, fmike, negrats, and myself all went out to Stage Fort Park during the morning on Columbus day.

Gary & I buddied up and the other four chose to dive together. We had a good time despite the cold and crappy dive conditions.

Basically, visibilty was less than 2 feet.

Here's a report of the dive:
Gary & I discussed the plan on surface. Turn pressure was 1600 psi. We would follow a 180 degree heading, turn, and come back on the reciprical course. We discussed lost buddy procedure (look for up to 1 minute, then surface). We swam out several hundred yards toward some large rocks before we descended.

Gary & I lost each other upon our initial descent. We looked around for a minute then surfaced. We found each other on the surface then re-descended very close together. Once on the bottom, we anchored the flag with an 8 lb weight near a lobster trap (bad idea in retrospect...Lobstermen don't like divers) in 16 ft of water and silt six inches deep.

I was navigator for the dive. We went out on a 180 degree heading toward the end of the breakwater. I was focused almost solely on my compass and making sure Gary & I didn't lose each other. There were time where visibility was so poor that I couldn't see Gary who was less than two feet away from me. I knew he was there because we kept kicking each other. At one point we lost each other briefly, but quickly found one-another.

I decided to turn around at ~2000psi because vis was so awful. Gary didn't understand my turn around signal (we hadn't discussed it pre-dive) so we swam around in circles for a bit. After a minute I gave the thumbs up and we ascended so we could discuss what was going on. Agreeing that the dive sucked, we decided to head back in.

We set a heading back to the flag and redescended. We landed on a lobster line which spooked me a bit since I couldn't see where it went or if I had gotten tangled in it. On our heading back we came across a few lobster traps which, because of the vis, appeared out of nowhere and spooked both Gary and me.

We over-shot our flag by 50-100 yards and ascended when we had gone past the 16 fsw mark and the lobster trap that the flag was near. I did a horizontal ascent which worked quite well. On the surface we figured out where our flag was and swam to it. We descended, struggled with the weighted anchor for a bit and, because of all the silt and the weight of the anchor, decided to undo the weight on the surface.

Then we swam forever back to shore on the surface with an 8 lb weight in my right pocket which had me way off balance.


There is my admittedly dry trip report..I snagged it almost directly from my logbook.

Profile was 42 minutes of dive time (including 3 de/ascents) and a bottom of 26 fsw. My SAC was crappy due to all the air wasted going up and down plus the added stress of crappy visibility. Vis ranged from 3 inches to 2 feet. All I saw during the dive was my compass and a couple lobster traps that I almost ran into.

We decided against doing a second dive and retired to the local Marina restaurant where I had a nice bowl of clam chowder and the rest of the crew had lunch and hot deco drinks.

 

[mer]

Kev, Trish, Mike and I were the other four. We all wanted to dive together since Kev was going for lobster and we all wanted to play with bugs. Trish had the foresight to suggest we offically pair off in case we lost each other in the bad vis.

After surface swimming for a while, trying to find someplace with at least 2 feet of vis, we swam out of a tidal current line and decended where we had about 5 feet of vis. Immediately Mike and I lost Kev and Trish.

We swam towards the rocks off the left hand side of the beach, hoping to find more life there. We did see quite a few crabs and some undersized lobster, but not until we were about a foot away from them and had throughly pissed them off. Nothing like claws coming at your face out of the slit from 12 inches or less away.

Basically the dive was an exercise in navigation. Both Mike and I had dive lights, which ended up being very crucial in not losing each other. When we got close to the rocks we headed parallel to them back towards the beach. Saw a few of those crabs-in-the-shell and a massive sea slug type thing things (yes I need to learn my marine biology better dammit).

The surge was rather considerable, but then again the later part of the dive was rather shallow. We had to surface once to get our bearings and decided where to head for the rest of the dive.

When Mike got low on air, we surfaced about 75 feet off the beach. Dive time of 35 minutes, max depth 23 feet, averaging 13 feet. Surface water temp of 61 deg in places with coldest temp of 57. The air was 54 deg with winds gust to around 30 knots and not a cloud in the sky.

Since the other four were still in the water when Mike and I got out, we ditched the units in the car and headed on back down to play in the surf. Got to see Gary and Aaron surface way past their dive flag... got a chuckle off that. :froggy: I had an absolute blast body surfing, especially since I was warmer in the water than out. --- But then again, I'm easily amused.

Then we rolled over to The Gull at Gloucester Marina so that Gary had ample time to harass me. Mmm hot deco drinks.
:boxing:

I can think of worse things I could have done with my Columbus day, but definitely the least pretty dive I've been on since the finger lakes of NY.

 

[Spectre]

mer once bubbled...
Saw a few of those crabs-in-the-shell and a massive sea slug type thing things (yes I need to learn my marine biology better dammit).

Hermit Crabs and Moon Snails [I'm guessing].

Sounds like a good time... I've got to get myself wet again soon!

 

[PK]

Mike and Mer seemed to have the best dive of the day.

Kevin and I lost them immediately on descent. I was a little concerned since I was the only one holding the flag for the 4 of us.

Kevin and I were not into a no vis dive so we swam around a bit and kept trying areas that might be interesting. Nothing.

Mer surfaced a couple of times so we knew they were okay. We played with the waves afterwards. It was still a lot of fun even though the dive part was creepy.

 

[mer]

I guess I was just trying to stay positive about the whole thing. There are always good things you can learn from a not-so-hot dive. Scaring the crap out of crabs is at least somewhat interesting.

Spectre - I was thinking hermit crabs, but wasn't quite sure. Anyone have any ideas about ways to learn more about the marine biology of the area.

Not having a flag was a bit weird, but I knew that we were headed in the same direction and were probably within a hundred feet of each other and therefore still *technically* legal. That's another reason why I navigated us close to those rocks, the shallow water would protect us even more from any boats.

Trish, I completely understand the creepyness part. I guess that's one of the reasons that I got into diving and alot of the other water sports I've done. I have a grandmother, who took care of me alot when I was young, and she is deadly afraid of water -- to the point that I'm convinced that she only takes showers, not baths, for fear of the water. At such an impessionable age, she had me afraid of swimming directly over the main drain in the swimming pool. I slowly got over my ingrained fear of water the hard way. My parents also pushed me since my mother had this fear instilled in her and did not want me to retain it into adulthood. I worked my way through swimming lessons, lifeguarding, water safety instructor, head lifeguard, sailing instructor, ocean sailing and finally SCUBA. When I started SCUBA a only had a minor fear of murky water remaining. My no-vis check out dives were definitely a rude awakening, but in the long run, just another obstacle to overcome. I guess it has just intstilled a greater respect for the ocean. This dive I only got creeped out when I couldn't find Mike for 10 seconds. It still gets me on some dives when you are descending and can't tell if it goes down another 15' or drops off into the abyss. I guess it's just my faith in my equipment (and gauges) that keeps my calm. I'm rambling so.... til then.

 

[Spectre]

mer once bubbled...
Spectre - I was thinking hermit crabs, but wasn't quite sure. Anyone have any ideas about ways to learn more about the marine biology of the area.

Keep your eyes and ears out for the next Reef fish ID course for one. Secondly, Pick up Andrew Martinez's book: Marine Life of the North Atlantic.

And lastly... ask us... we'll help!

 

[dkerr]

I was across the harbor from you at Niles beach. Vis in the morning was 7ft and the afternoon about 5ft. Not alot to see but did find a HUGE sea raven and a couple of large skate. All lobsters that I saw were small. This was my first time at Niles. It's basically a big mud flat, with a piece of trash every 15ft which would always harbor a crab or small lobster guarding it. I did find a large anchor on my decent but could not budge it for the life of me.

 

[gmbaker]

Aaron pretty much summed it up. poor vis and a few complications. Trying to get something positive from each dive, I think we did an excellent job of planning the dive and diving the plan. When Aaron and I lost each other on the initial decent, I was pleased to see that we both surfaced roughly at the same time. In those conditions, this definately kept me a little more relaxed.

Anchoring the flag the last few dives has been a good test of navigation and we seem to be getting better each time. Aaron did a good job at navigating. As a precaution due to the conditions, I checked our heading as well, but not as often.

Surfacing past the flag had to make us laugh. I look forward to the day when we acutally make it back to the flag without having to surface first.

I also got a chance to try out my new Reg. A few weeks ago, I purchchased a new APEKS ATX50/DS4 first stage and primary, and a TX40 octo from DiveInn. I did go to my LDS to have them bench test the reg.

Overall I liked the performace and the adjustability of the inital cracking resistance and the flow or air. I played around with the controls a bunch since there was not much else to see during the dive . I hope to get a little deeper and have better conditions and more bottom time in the future to see how the APEKS does compared to my 10yr old USD conshelf. look for a report hopefully soon.

It was also nice to put faces to the names of the fellow NELD members. Of course the post dive Hot Chocolate+schnapps, lunch and good conversation helped to erase any memory of poor vis and cold water.

 

[Soggy]

gmbaker once bubbled...
Trying to get something positive from each dive, I think we did an excellent job of planning the dive and diving the plan. When Aaron and I lost each other on the initial decent, I was pleased to see that we both surfaced roughly at the same time. In those conditions, this definately kept me a little more relaxed.

I definately agree...having dived with each other a few times we are getting much better at pre-dive planning. It doesn't seem like it, but there is quite a lot to remember in a pre-dive chat and it's one of those things that gets better with experience. OW classes make it sound like all you need to do is talk about depth, time, and what to do in an emergency. In reality, there is a lot more to talk about.

Anchoring the flag the last few dives has been a good test of navigation and we seem to be getting better each time.
...
Surfacing past the flag had to make us laugh. I look forward to the day when we acutally make it back to the flag without having to surface first.

I think we might have seen the flag had the vis been better since we passed within a few feet of it. However, it was good that we both knew we had passed it!

 

[shellbird]

I was at my desk all day... so even a crappy dive is better than that...

Brings back memories of Cape Ann #1.... although we didn't even have blue sky...